Collectors should know, straightaway, two things; firstly,
that these six discs are priced as four, and second that the
set contains approximately five hours of previously unreleased
Glenn Gould material. Gould aficionados may be familiar with
those performances that have seen the light of day - the Bach
Clavier concerto No.5 in Toronto in 1957, the 1951 Weber Conzertstück,
and Beethoven’s Op.109 sonata from Vienna. Probably the best
known live performances of all in this category are the collaborations
with Leonard Rose and Oscar Shumsky from 7 August 1960. Just
before this boxed set was launched Sony issued the Emperor Concerto
with Krips, though as is made clear in the documentation, West
Hill compiled it independently of the Sony CD. Which leaves
a plethora of material making its first ever appearance, much
to the delight, joy and possible consternation of Gouldians
far and wide.

As for the pianist himself, doubtless he would have scowled
to Kingdom come. But if concert performances were a torture
for him, they are a luxury for us. These discs mark a great
day in Gould Studies, and they have much to tell us about the
pianist and his by-and-large rectitudinous performances during
the years covered by this set – 1951-60.

Though it might be more schematic to break down this box by
composer or genre, I’ll take things as they come and discuss
them disc by disc. The first opens with that iconic piece of
Gouldiana, the Goldberg Variations. Whether a previous
live Canadian performance is your Gould of choice here, or maybe
the two commercial recordings of 1955 and 1981 or whether –
like me – you revere the live Salzburg from the same year as
this Vancouver CBC broadcast - this latest example of his art
will still have you enthralled. His deftly ‘over pointing’ left
hand chatters throughout the first canon, whilst his tempo for
the second canon borders on the insatiable. He uses more rubati
than usual in the seventh variation, sounds very rushed and
excitable in variation 13, taking the repeat in a blaze of moans.
He, as ever, refuses to indulge the Black Pearl, makes a few
slips in 26, and takes a good complement of repeats (both halves)
in the Quodlibet before the Aria da capo. On the question of
repeats he is, as usual, very much his own man, usually dispensing
with them but on a handful of occasions taking a first part
repeat. This splendid performance is full of drama, caprice
and life.

On the first disc we also hear the D minor Clavier concerto
in Stockholm with Georg Ludwig Jochum conducting. The piano
is not quite as much in perspective here, but the music’s realisation
is powerful, and rhythmically infectious. The cadenza is especially
fine and with Jochum bringing out the sentient tone of the lower
strings things are set fair for a resilient, communicative reading.
By comparison I find the Fifth concerto (CBC Symphony/Nicholas
Goldschmidt, September 1957) rather stolid and, especially in
the opening movement, more than a little foursquare.

The second disc gives us more Bach, adding Haydn and Mozart.
The Fifth Brandenburg Concerto comes from Detroit in October
1960. The flautist is Albert Tipton, the violinist is the distinguished
Mischa Mischakoff, and Paul Paray directs the city’s orchestra.
The music-making is at a very high level all-round and there’s
playfulness as well as command from Gould in the opening movement
where he dispatches the mighty cadenza with breathtaking command.
Mischakoff and Tipton blend and fuse tones knowingly, and the
central movement witnesses some ineffable chamber playing wisdom
from all three men. The fourth voice is, literally, Gould’s
as he moans along with his two partners. Haydn is represented
by the E flat major sonata, Hob.XVI:49, direct from the Vancouver
International Festival, July 1958. Gould certainly relishes
the quirky timing of the first movement, bringing great drama
to the proceedings, and he brings an almost proto-Schubertian
sense to the slow movement. Then it’s back to another concerto,
Mozart’s K491. Gould said some silly things about Mozart, and
much worse he did some adolescent things to his music. But he
got on with this concerto, which he recorded with the CBC Symphony
and that master accompanist Walter Susskind in 1961, a couple
of years after this New York broadcast. Directing that city’s
Philharmonic was Leonard Bernstein, with whom Gould forged a
significant musical partnership. Despite not especially liking
the concerto – he called it ‘not a very successful concerto’
– Gould plays it splendidly. Together the two men sculpt a powerful
landscape, with Gould filling in some of the piano lines. He
plays the Hummel first movement cadenza and two little cadenzas
of his own in the slow movement.

On the same bill as that Bach Brandenburg in Detroit was Beethoven’s
Second Concerto, of which work Gould was a professed admirer.
He mutters and chunters along as usual, but he detonates lithe
left hand bullet points, playing throughout with great clarity,
rhythmic impetus and real understanding. The slow movement is
warmly phrased and there’s plenty of brio, humour and fun in
the finale. This is a special example of Gould’s sense of enjoyment,
an antidote to his somewhat clunky spoken humour. Both the Stratford
Festival chamber works have been out before, and so these 7
August 1960 performances with two of America’s greatest string
players, Leonard Rose and Oscar Shumsky, have been admired before
now. Hearing these performances again has been an enriching
experience.

Beethoven and Weber occupy disc four. The Emperor was
given on 6 November 1960 in Buffalo where Josef Krips was to
be found on the rostrum. This is, perhaps unusually, a highly
effective mediation between the work’s more bombastic, showy
elements and its refined lyric impulses. If such a mediation
appeals, then Gould’s way – not self-regarding but also not
over-refined, simply powerful when necessary and introspectively
limpid too – will appeal greatly. His chops are magisterial
when the occasion demands and he phrases with reverence in the
slow movement. I like the transition from slow movement to finale
– it’s nearly in the Wilhelm Kempff class – but even more the
little fillips with which he galvanises the rhythm. The shame
here is the ridiculously over-recorded percussionist, and this
turns the thing into a concerto for piano, percussion and orchestra.
Weber’s Conzertstück op.79 receives an eventful, intelligent
reading, though he’s not as insistent on a legato-staccato approach
as is, say, Claudio Arrau – to take another live performance
from around this time. Ernest Macmillan conducts. The Piano
Sonata in E major 109 completes the trio of works in this fourth
disc. Taped in Vienna in 1957, it’s a puzzling affair. Gould
gets increasingly querulous, hectic and undisciplined in the
first compact two movements. Then, in the Andante molto cantabile,
he veers between poetic insight and stop-go disaffection.

The fifth disc brings us two concertos. The first is Brahms’s
First which was later to be the work with which he hit the headlines
on that famous occasion when he performed it with Leonard Bernstein
in New York. The problem was not simply its distended length;
it was also the smoothing out of dynamics. The thing became
very lateral, though when I last heard it, for review purposes,
it was remarkable how performers have caught up with Gould,
as it were, at least in tempo terms; it often sounds just as
marmoreal and slow now, as it did with Gould then. The good
news is that it doesn’t in this 1959 broadcast in Winnipeg with
Victor Feldbrill. The orchestra is not first-rate – the horns
are particularly not first-rate - but Gould is. He has power
in reserve, shapes phrases dynamically, takes a good tempo,
avoids didactic point-making, and characterises well, especially
the restless unease of the central movement. This serves as
a corrective to the later performance, and a reminder that Gould’s
ideas were not set in stone.

Gould and George Szell had an interesting, sometimes combative
professional relationship. In the end however Gould preferred
to work with Louis Lane in Cleveland, and it’s Lane who directs
the Schoenberg Concerto (Severance Hall, November 1959). It’s
never an easy listen but this performance really brings colour,
zest and tensile control to the table. Listen to the lower brass
and percussion in the second movement Allegro to appreciate
the level of commitment evinced by all concerned, not least
in the vehemence and seeming reconciliation of the closing Giocoso.

The final disc brings more Schoenberg, but solo this time. The
Three Piano Pieces Op.11 were recorded at the Schoenberg
memorial Concert in Toronto on 4 October 1952. The source material
is Gould’s own private recording, now housed in the Library
and Archives in Ottawa. Gould brings out the silence inherent
in the music as much as its rhythmic charge and powerful asperities.
He also played the Suite for piano at the same concert, bringing
to this very different work a staunch acerbity. He’s joined
by mezzo Kerstin Meyer for the 15 verses from The Book of
the Hanging Gardens Op.15, a really impressive collaboration,
watertight in ensemble, and wholly dedicated. Webern’s Variations
Op.27 was taped in Leningrad in 1957, as was Krenek’s Third
Sonata. The former is famously spare, indeed laconic, whilst
Krenek’s sonata is far more garrulous; both however find Gould
wholly sympathetic to their very different demands.

It must be clear by now that this is an outstanding set. It
has an extensive and excellent essay by Kevin Bazzana, who has
written extensively about Gould, not least in the shape of two
books. The booklet is also illustrated with well produced black
and white photographs of Gould. A must for Gouldians, and indeed
others too.

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